Entering the Kingdom of God

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Dael Kurti; John 3:1-15, Sermon 2 of 3 Entering the Kingdom of God

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. Did anybody oversleep this morning?
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Or no, under sleep. I got up at what I thought was like 6 o 'clock, went about my business and came home and then my wife was sitting on the couch reading and she said, did you notice the clock?
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And I thought, what is she talking about? And I thought there was going to be some little note like, I love you, honey, or something.
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But she had set the clock back. So I was like, great. So I went back to bed for an hour. I feel great.
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So I hope that you enjoyed your extra hour of sleep.
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But, you know, it's almost Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks. I'm excited about that.
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Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays. And I'd like to give you a snapshot, just briefly, of Thanksgiving in our home, at least in my home as I was growing up.
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So this is the picture that I had, that I have in my mind, remembering as I grew up. It was my brother and myself and my dad.
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We would be in the living room, you know, just relaxing, dozing off. You know, and my mom and maybe some guests, you know, were out in the kitchen and they were cooking away, having a good time, preparing food.
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And, you know, you would be sitting out in the living room and you would get these beautiful smells just kind of wafting in.
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And it was kind of like a foretaste of this great banquet that you knew was going to happen in just a couple of hours.
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And every so often my mom would take a plate of deviled eggs or something and she would bring them out to us and we would snack on those.
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And, you know, it wasn't time for the meal yet, but you got this foretaste of this delicious food and you got these smells that were a promise, you know, of what was coming soon.
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And even though this was such kind of a warm and joyful and happy day, there was still great suffering and anger because we were watching the
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Lions, usually. And I thought, you know, that's a good example of what we talked about last week, the
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Kingdom of God. Last week we talked about how the Kingdom of God is, in the future, going to break into this world at the triumphant return of our
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Lord Jesus and it will cover the entire earth. Jesus' authority and reign will be realized over the whole earth.
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But what we talked about last week also is that the Kingdom of God is not only something that is in the future, it has folded back into history and it's an active, effective, pervasive agent of transformation now, in our present age.
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It's changing lives, changing hearts. Jesus is at work to bring His Kingdom now, in this present age.
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And so last week we talked about how there's this sort of paradox in the Bible that the
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Kingdom is now, in part, that some blessings are to be tasted now, some blessings are to be experienced now, some of the suffering of this present generation is to be overcome now through the power of the
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Spirit and through the foretaste of the Kingdom, but the fullness of that blessing and the fullness of that healing doesn't come until Jesus returns.
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And so the Kingdom is both now, but not yet. And that's what we're going to talk a little bit more about this morning.
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One aspect of the Kingdom that is now, and experienceable now, is in Colossians chapter 1.
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If you'll direct your eyes up to the screen. Colossians 1, verse 13 and 14.
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He, Jesus, has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the
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Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
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He has delivered us. So, grammar nerds, that's present perfect tense, right?
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That's something that's happened in the past, and the effect is continuing into the present. Jesus has delivered us from the
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Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom, His own Kingdom. So, our entrance into the
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Kingdom of God is something that is experienceable now. And so that's what we're going to talk about this morning.
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We're going to talk about if the Kingdom was so important to Jesus, so important, we talked about last week, that this was
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His central teaching. He mentioned it more than 150 times, as I recall, in the
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New Testament. He talked about it all the time. If the Kingdom of God is that important, we need to make sure that we're a part of it.
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And so we're going to look today at John chapter 3, verses 1 through 15, and we're going to explore what it means to enter the
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Kingdom, what it means to be born again. Because Jesus said, nobody can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again.
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So I hope that this will be helpful to you. I'm looking forward to it. And let's pray as we, and then we'll invite the worship team to come back up, and we will continue on with our service this morning.
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Father in Heaven, I thank you for the chance to gather together. I thank you for people here together eager to worship you.
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I pray now that our worship time would be pleasing to you and honoring to you.
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I pray, Father, that you would give me grace as I share a message from your word this morning. Maybe it's not new information for some people, but I pray that it would be a blessing all the same.
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I pray that each person this morning would receive what you uniquely and individually have for them.
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Father, come. We want to know you. We want to experience you. Let us be found with expectant hearts and listening ears.
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Father, we commit this morning's worship to you, this morning's reception and speaking of the word to you.
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Come, Father. Holy Spirit, come. We are hungry for you. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you.
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Thank you to the worship team. As I mentioned before, we're going to look this morning at how a person enters the kingdom of God.
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And we're going to look at a passage that is probably very familiar to you if you were raised in the church.
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We're going to look at John 3, verses 1 -15. And we chose that passage because Jesus was specifically addressing this issue of entrance into the kingdom of God.
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So I would invite you to turn with me to John 3, and we're going to read verses 1 -15 today.
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I think everybody knows John 3, 16, but we will cut it off at John 3, 1 -15 to give a little background to probably the most famous verse in the
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Bible. And we're going to be talking this morning about what it means to be born again.
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Or it's sometimes translated born of God or born from heaven. You could translate it in a number of different ways.
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And I found an interesting statistic as I was preparing for this message that 45 % of people in America say that they are born again.
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I don't know what you think of that statistic. I don't know if that seems inflated to you. But if that many people are claiming to be born again,
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I think we really need to be careful that we understand exactly what it means and exactly what it does not mean.
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And so that is our goal this morning, to investigate what it means to be born again, born into the kingdom of God.
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So I would just like to pray briefly again before we read. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would come.
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Speak through your word. I ask that your Holy Spirit would minister truth to our hearts this morning.
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Not through me. I am no one. I pray that you would minister to us.
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Life is from you. We commit this time to you in Jesus' name. Amen. John 3, 1 -15.
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I'm going to go ahead and read this. And I've actually decided to try something different this morning. I'm going to read it from the
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New Living Translation because I think that they, I like the way that they word some of this.
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So, John 3, 1 -15. There was a man named Nicodemus, a
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Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus.
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Rabbi, he said, we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.
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Jesus replied, I tell you the truth. Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. What do you mean?
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exclaimed Nicodemus. How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?
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Jesus replied, I assure you no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the spirit.
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Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
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So don't be surprised when I say you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it wants, just as you can hear the wind, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going, so you can't understand how people are born of the spirit.
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How are these things possible? Nicodemus asked. Jesus replied, you are a respected
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Jewish teacher, and yet you don't understand these things? I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won't believe our testimony.
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But if you don't believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
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No one has ever gone to heaven and returned, but the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the
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Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
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Now what I'd like to do is just walk through this passage, and we'll make some observations as we do so.
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So Nicodemus, who was this guy? Nicodemus in verses 1 and 2, he was an important man.
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Nicodemus was the equivalent, I want you to think, of a man on caliber. Who is a well -known
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Christian leader today? Somebody who's published, whose books you read, a Bible scholar, maybe a seminary professor.
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That's the caliber of man that Nicodemus was. He was a respected Jewish teacher of the
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Old Testament. He was a member of the Sanhedrin. Now the Sanhedrin was the 70 -member ruling council for the
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Jewish nation. And these 70 men had authority over religious, civil, and in some cases, criminal cases that came before the nation.
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Just as our Congress today in America is divided between Republicans and Democrats, so also the
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Sanhedrin was really divided into two factions. There were Sadducees. Now Sadducees were aristocratic elites who were a little bit more sympathetic towards Rome.
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They were very wealthy, and they had an anti -supernatural kind of outlook on the
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Old Testament. They didn't believe in angels, demons, any of these kinds of things. And the
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Sadducees were really not very popular among the Jewish people. But the other faction were the
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Pharisees. Now the Pharisees were a group of men who devoted their life to understanding the
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Old Testament and meticulously and carefully carrying out every command that was found there. Now the
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Pharisees were often, sometimes they were wealthy, but oftentimes they were working class individuals, and they were also
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Bible teachers. Now Jesus has a lot of harsh things to say to the
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Pharisees because they were very rigid, they were very oppositional towards Jesus, they were self -righteous and judgmental at times.
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But history tells us that the Pharisees generally were a very respected group in Israel during the time of Jesus.
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They were popular and they were respected, and it's estimated that there were around 6 ,000 Pharisees scattered throughout
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Israel during the time of Jesus. So Nicodemus was a member of this group of Pharisees.
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Now notice it says in this verse, Nicodemus came to Jesus when? At night.
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Now there are speculations as to why that is the case. I think the most plausible reason is because there was tremendous pressure, especially in Jerusalem, from the religious authorities not to believe in Jesus.
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So Nicodemus came at night. I suspect this was a secret meeting. You know, one rabbi to another.
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You know, Nicodemus was a fair -minded individual though, and he obviously didn't let other people do his thinking for him.
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He had seen the miracles of Jesus, and he wanted more information about Jesus.
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You know, it's possible that Nicodemus was even representative of a more sympathetic faction in the
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Sanhedrin towards Jesus. You know, he's cordial, he's polite, he's fair -minded, and he approaches
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Jesus, addressing him as rabbi, but Jesus gets right to the point, and he says,
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Nicodemus, I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.
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Now, the kingdom of God was the most precious hope that the
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Jewish nation possessed. You'll remember, the Jews lived in the expectation that a great king would come from the line of David, and he would establish justice in a virtuous government.
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He would liberate the nation from the Romans. He would heal the sick, free those who were oppressed from various demonic influences and so on.
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He would bring in an age of unending peace and prosperity.
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This is the kingdom of God in the Jewish mindset. They were eagerly waiting for this king who would come and release them from their suffering and oppression.
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However, many Jews believed that the kingdom of God was their birthright, that by virtue of simply being
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Jewish, by virtue of simply being born into this nation, the kingdom of God belonged to them.
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And that's why John the Baptist warned the Pharisees and the Sadducees. In Matthew 3, verse 9, he says,
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Do not think you can say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. I tell you that out of these stones,
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God can raise up children for Abraham. You see, it's not through physical birth that one enters the kingdom of heaven.
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It's not your birthright. Now, I don't believe that Nicodemus was an egocentric man by any means, but this word of Jesus must have come as a surprise to him.
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Why? Well, don't miss this. See, Nicodemus was a scholar of the Old Testament. He was a leader of the people.
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He was respected and well -known. He was
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God -fearing, law -abiding, and he was also unsaved. He needed to be born again.
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And this is an important point. Friends, not to put too sharp a point on it, but if Nicodemus was insufficient by his own merits to enter the kingdom of God, then we too are insufficient by our own merits to enter the kingdom of God.
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If his resume was insufficient, so our resume is insufficient as well.
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You see, being born again does not mean having Bible knowledge. Nicodemus had lots of that.
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Being born again does not mean belonging to a favored religious tradition or having a certain label, whatever that might be in our generation, evangelical or so on, because Nicodemus had a favorable label.
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It doesn't mean being nice. Nicodemus was nice. He was cordial and polite. It doesn't mean that you're impressed with Jesus either because Nicodemus was very impressed with Jesus.
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He saw the miracles with his own eyes. He still needed to be born again.
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It doesn't even mean believing in God. If you believe in God, then you have simply attained the same level that the devil is at.
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Nicodemus believed in God, and he needed to be born again. So what does it mean to be born again?
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If those are the things that born again does not mean, what does it mean?
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Well, look at John 4 here. Nicodemus didn't understand either. How can a man be born when he's old,
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Nicodemus asked? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born.
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Well, Nicodemus' first reaction to Jesus' words were to interpret them with this kind of crude literalism, which
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Nicodemus himself knew was impossible, and that's not at all what Jesus meant. But Jesus replied.
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He said, I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the
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Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
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So don't be surprised when I say you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it wants, just as you hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it's going, so you can't understand how people are born of the
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Spirit. Now, what does it mean to be born of water and the Spirit? Now, if you look in your commentaries, you'll find vigorous, enthusiastic debate among Bible scholars about what exactly the word water means here, and there are essentially three views, as I can discern.
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Some people say that water is a reference to physical birth. In other words, it's a reference maybe to the amniotic fluid that surrounds a baby.
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When a woman goes into the process of childbirth, the first thing that usually happens is, what, her water breaks.
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And that interpretation would seem to fit with the sentence that is immediately following, where he says humans can give birth to human life, but only the
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Spirit can give birth to spiritual life. But I don't believe that that's what Jesus was talking about here, because nowhere that I can find in the
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Old Testament is water necessarily associated with physical birth. Now, I have three boys, and I've been present for all of their births, and water is not really what
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I think of when, that's not the first image that comes to mind when I think of physical birth. If Jesus really was referring to physical birth,
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I think he could have said that in a clearer way. Some would suggest, many suggest, that water here is a reference to baptism.
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Now, baptism is very important, and Nicodemus would certainly have been familiar with John's baptism.
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John was a very public figure. He baptized many people. So baptism was not unknown to the
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Jews. However, I don't believe that that is the correct interpretation of this passage either, because what it does, it seems to me that it imposes a doctrine of Christian baptism, which would flower later in the church's understanding, some decade or two decades later.
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It seems to impose that doctrine onto a conversation here that Jesus isn't talking about baptism.
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He could have made that clearer if that's what he meant. Now, if you have a different opinion, you're free to disagree with me, but I think that Jesus is not talking about two separate things, water and the
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Spirit. I think he's talking about two aspects of the same thing. Now, notice here, immediately following this,
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Jesus rebukes Nicodemus. Why? He says, you're the teacher of Israel, and you don't understand these things?
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So, Jesus is rebuking Nicodemus for not understanding something from the
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Old Testament that he should have understood. Now, what should a Bible scholar like Nicodemus have understood from the
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Old Testament? Well, Ezekiel 36, verses 25 through 27, for example.
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God is speaking and he says, Your idol worship gone, and I will give you a new heart.
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I will give you new and right desires. I will put a new spirit within you. I will take out your stony hearts of sin and give you new hearts of love.
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I will put my spirit within you so that you will obey my laws and do whatever
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I command. Friends, in view of Ezekiel 36, I don't think
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Jesus is talking about two separate events. I think he's talking about one regenerative event, being born again, being born of the water and the spirit, is the
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Holy Spirit's work of cleansing and regeneration and transformation that occurs when a person gives their life to Jesus Christ.
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Apart from Christ, you see the Bible pictures, apart from Christ, a person has no spiritual life.
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Just like the speaker or the lamp, when it's unplugged, it has no power in itself, so also people apart from Christ, cut off from Christ, have no life within themselves.
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We are, in most cases, maybe passionate about a great many things, but there's no passion for God.
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There's an unresponsiveness to the things of God. There may be a delight in sinful pleasures and worldly passions, but towards the things of God, people are unresponsive.
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There is no personal relationship with God. Now, a person may be interested in the idea of God, but there's not a personal connection and a personal relationship with God.
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Hence, the natural man, apart from Christ, is stone -cold spiritually dead, separated from God.
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Now, that's the condition of a man apart from Christ. Now, the
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Holy Spirit hovers over these dark waters, and He calls forth light, and He calls forth life into this.
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The Holy Spirit takes away spiritual indifference and implants a hungry,
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God -seeking, Christ -delighting heart. The Holy Spirit cleanses away sin and guilt with pure spiritual water, and if that were not enough, the
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Holy Spirit takes residence in the life of the believer. He gives new life,
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God's life. The believer will no longer perish, but have eternal life.
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And this isn't just a matter of heavenly record -keeping. When a man is born again, a man or a woman is born again, everything changes.
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Some things change instantly, some things take time. But, friends, habits are altered.
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Sin is forsaken. Goals are rewritten. Hopes are redefined.
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Relationships are mended. Passions are forsaken, and new passions are embraced.
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All of this is an act of the triune God, and it is a miracle. Now, allow me to emphasize three points here that flow from this passage.
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First of all, you'll observe, spiritual rebirth is an act of God, not of man.
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And as such, it occurs through means of God's power. Friends, we're not talking about just returning to church, maybe after a long absence.
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We're not talking about turning over a new leaf. Being born again is not some kind of self -reformation project.
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Being born again is a transformational work of God, not of man. Look at this scripture,
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John 1, 12, and 13. But to all who believed in him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
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They are reborn, not with a physical birth, resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
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To be born again is to have God act upon you in such a way that your life is transformed.
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The second thing, spiritual rebirth is an act of God and not of man. And as such, it is both comprehensive and it is transformational.
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Listen to me as I, now it might be hard to read, I realize the print is small, but I'm going to read three verses from 1
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John that describe what it looks like to be born again. 1
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John 3, 9. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
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1 John 4, 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows
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God. 1 John 5, 4. Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.
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Friends, I have a fear this morning. I told you before that 45 % of the
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American population claims that they are born again. Now, I'm not going to judge anybody's individual confession, that's a matter between them and God.
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But if we're going to use this term so freely, we don't want to lose its meaning.
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I fear that we use this term almost flippantly. This is a transformational, powerful work of God.
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We're not talking about, you know, just kind of adopting a certain doctrinal statement or, you know, giving intellectual assent to some creed somewhere.
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We're talking about transformation, regeneration, the Bible calls it. The prophet
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Ezekiel says that God will give each person a new heart. Let's think about that for a second.
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I want you to pause and think with me. When Ezekiel says, I'm going to give you, God says,
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I'm going to give you a new heart, what does that mean? What is the meaning of the word heart?
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Well, it's the organ in the body, isn't it? I think we all know that it means something more than that, but the definition can be a little slippery, can't it?
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What exactly does it mean to have a new heart? Well, I'll give you my best understanding of what the heart is in the scripture.
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The heart is the seat of our affections. It is the source spring of the motivations that drive our actions.
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It is the home of our most treasured ambitions. It is the place where our deepest beliefs reside.
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Friends, it's the source spring of the values and motivations that drive our actions.
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That's what the heart is. Change must come from the heart.
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Genuine regeneration involves a change of the heart, not simply outward conformity to the norms of a certain group.
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Has anybody heard of Paul Tripp? One person at least. Paul Tripp is an author, a
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Christian author, and he's written books about transformation, and he's written books about parenting.
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I would encourage you, Paul Tripp, if you want a really good... We went through a curriculum with some friends of ours on parenting, and it's just fantastic material.
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And he talks about going to the heart of the issue and not just dealing with external behavior, but he really has some good things to say.
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He gives this example. I love this example. He says, imagine that I have an apple tree in my backyard, and year after year, this apple tree produces tasteless, sort of rotten, just bad apples.
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And we try fertilizing the tree and so on, and nothing works. And finally, after several years of putting up with this tree,
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I tell my wife, Honey, today's the day I'm going to fix that tree. So, I go to the store, and I buy three big baskets of ripe, lush, red, beautiful apples, and I go out into the backyard, and I take a staple gun, and I cut off the old apples, and I go to each branch, and I staple on the new apples.
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And from about 50 feet away, it looks like a healthy tree, doesn't it? It looks fantastic.
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But I think we all know that we didn't solve the problem, did we? There's a fundamental problem, a systematic problem with this tree from the root up.
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Nailing apples on a branch isn't going to resolve the problem. It makes it look pretty from the outside, but you haven't changed the character of the tree.
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Friends, behavioral conformity does not equal conversion. I fear that people sometimes adopt an outward set of behaviors without yielding to internal change.
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In other words, people are stapling apples to a tree. We need heart change.
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You know, I was discipled when I was in college by a man who is now a leader in a very large
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Christian missions organization. And I'll tell you what, this guy was a man of God. He would come to my dorm room each week, or we would go to the student center, and we'd sit down and we'd talk about the
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Bible. And this man was one of the most patient, gentle, thoughtful, kind -hearted people that I've met.
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I mean, he was a huge guy, but he was just a gentle giant. And I remember one time we were talking, and he kind of told me a little bit of his story.
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I hope I'm remembering this correctly. He said, you know, before I was a Christian, I was a very violent guy.
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In fact, I would go out looking for trouble sometimes, and he would get in fights just for the fun of it. He would beat people up occasionally.
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I thought to myself, really? It's like I couldn't see.
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I was like, you? No way. I could not, for the life of me, see that.
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It was like he was talking about a different person. And you know, in a sense, he was, because he had been born again.
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God had changed him from the heart. Our third principle that I want to share with you this morning is spiritual rebirth is an act of God, not of man.
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As such, it occurs at God's initiative, and therefore it's unpredictable and even mysterious.
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Just as you can hear the wind, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it will go to next, so it is with the
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Spirit. We do not know on whom God will next bestow this gift of life from the living
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Bible. Friends, God is sovereign, God is free. He will move when, where, and upon whom he chooses.
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Now, Nicodemus is having maybe a hard time with this, and so, you know, he asks, in verse 9, how are these things possible?
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You see, I don't think Nicodemus was hard -hearted. I think what he wanted to do is understand the mechanics of how a person is born again.
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And Jesus rebukes him then, and he says, listen, you don't understand when I explain to you an earthly, physical example about something we all know.
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How are you going to understand if I explain to you a spiritual example? You see, Nicodemus, you don't have to understand how something works to submit to it or to believe in it.
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I mean, friends, I think very few of us really understand how this microphone works. Maybe a few of you do.
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I don't. But we're all making use of it in one form or another this morning. And so it is with us.
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We don't have to understand God's timing. We don't have to understand how he transforms a human heart.
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But we've all seen it done, haven't we? We've all seen people that have been changed. Now, friends,
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I think it's possible for us to feel resigned at this moment, you know, looking at these principles, like resigned to fatalism.
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Like, well, being born of the Spirit, being born of God, is something God does.
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It's not of man. He does what he wants, when he wants, upon whom he wants. And so nothing
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I can do. I guess I'll just go about my business, pray for my coworkers. Maybe God will decide to touch him.
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Maybe he'll touch my own life. But, friends,
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God always works through two things. God likes cooperative effort, and he always works through his word, and he works through his people.
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And so in the matter of evangelism, if you are strategically positioned in the life of a friend who is a nonbeliever, then maybe we can say
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God has positioned you there. I was having lunch with a man from Iraq a few weeks ago, went to Shawarma King, open buffet, and we were talking,
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I can't even remember what we were talking about, nothing of importance, probably politics. And he stopped all of a sudden, and he said, all right,
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I want to change this topic. I want to talk about, I want to ask you what
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Christians believe about Messiah. And I was like, oh, thank you. And we had a really meaningful conversation about Messiah.
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And I'm wondering where that kind of spiritual interest came from.
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I think that's the movement of the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm not saying the man will be born again, but I'm saying that that kind of spiritual hunger and seeking,
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I think, comes from God. Friends, we are not passive objects.
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And that's why I believe in verses 1 through 8, Jesus describes God's role in the process of being born again, that he's the one that acts upon us and transforms us from the inside out.
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Then in verses 9 through 13, there's a rebuke where Jesus is rebuking Nicodemus for his unbelief and his insistence on understanding everything before accepting it.
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And then in verses 15 and 16 and 17,
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Jesus, verse 14, 15, 16, 17, Jesus talks about the human element in being born again.
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What is it that we do? What does it look like from our perspective? So let's read verses 14 and 15.
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So what does this mean? Snakes on a pole?
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Moses? I don't understand. This is a reference to Numbers chapter 21, specifically verses 8 and 9, a story that Nicodemus would have been very familiar with.
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And in this story, you'll remember the Jewish nation, some several million people had been led out of Egypt by Moses, delivered by the hand of God, and then they were wandering around in the desert.
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And the desert's not a pleasant place. It's a hard place. And the people started complaining about their problems and they were complaining against Moses and they were complaining against God.
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Do you ever think of complaining as sin? That's another sermon, I guess, but I don't usually. I complain about stuff all the time.
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But anyway, God led them out of Egypt. They were complaining about their sufferings and so God was angry with them and sent venomous snakes into their camp such that people were bitten.
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Many people died. Other people were gravely ill. And the people begged
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God for forgiveness. They repented. And God told Moses to take a pole and put a bronze -like image of a snake on it and put it in the middle of the camp and that anyone who came out of their tent and looked upon that symbol with faith would be healed.
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They didn't have to pay any money. They didn't have to say any magic words. They simply had to look and be saved.
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But this is not some kind of casual, sort of academic nod towards God.
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I mean, think about it. If you were on death's doorstep and you realized that you are going to die and there's nothing you can do to save yourself, this is a look of desperation.
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This is a look of self -abandoning faith. And if you're really that sick, it takes a lot of effort to get out of the tent, go to the center of camp, and look.
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God, I have sinned by complaining against you and your servant Moses. I don't want to die. Have mercy on me and save me.
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I look upon you. You're my only hope. I believe your word. That's the kind of faith, that's the kind of self -abandoned look of faith that God wants.
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Friends, as we conclude, I'd just like to tell you, this entire story of Moses in the wilderness points to Jesus.
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We've all been snake -bitten by the devil. And Jesus, the king that would crush the serpent's head, has come.
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He's been lifted up. We can look upon him in faith and be saved. You know, in Revelation 1, verse 7, it describes
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Jesus' return. And it says, Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.
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All the peoples on earth will mourn because of him, so shall it be. Amen. Jesus is coming again, and when he comes again, those who reject his authority will look upon him and mourn.
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But we have the opportunity this morning to look upon him and be saved. Everybody's going to look upon him either to mourn or to be saved.
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There are two options, and only two. You know, a few years, maybe,
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I'm not exactly sure how long, but shortly, a time after this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, Jesus was, in fact, lifted up on a cross and crucified for the sins of the world.
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And after Nicodemus was lifted up and put on that cross, after Jesus died, do you know who was there to take away his body?
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Two Pharisees from the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.
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And as Nicodemus took the body of Jesus down from that cross and wrapped it up and put spices on it and laid it in a tomb, what do you think was going through his mind?
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Now, there's no way to know for certain, but I'm quite certain it was this verse. The son of man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
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Would you pray with me as we close? Father in heaven,
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I ask that if there is someone here this morning who has never looked upon you in faith and yielded to you,
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I pray that you would give the gift of repentance. Father, thank you for your choice to send your son,
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Jesus, to die for us and rise again. We celebrate your work. In Jesus' name, amen.